A ROMAN MARBLE FUNERARY ALTAR FOR JULIA SPERATA

During the Imperial period, funerary monuments such as the present one were placed along the main roads leading to the city gates in the family funerary plot along other monumental tombs. They had the double function of mourning the departed while displaying the family's wealth and status in Roman society.

This funerary altar is carved in front with eleven lines of Latin inscription translating "To the Spirits of the Departed. Gaius Iulius Sabinianus, evocatus augusti, (had this made) for his most pious mother Julia Sperata, for her freedmen and freedwomen, and for their descendants," one side decorated in shallow relief with a patera, the other with an oinochoe, the pedimented lid with palmette acroteria in the corners and carved in front with a bird facing an overturned fruit basket, a shallow rectangular cavity on top of the altar under the removable lid for insertion of the cinerary urn.